4 ms·

For me, when I am the interviewer = and for many people, I think- "I am looking for a new challenge" is just too generic/phoney. The OP should briefly mention t

by jazzyk 11y ago

For me, when I am the interviewer = and for many people, I think- "I am looking for a new challenge" is just too generic/phoney. The OP should briefly mention the frat culture/all-night drinking, without elaborating too much, or sounding angry. If the new place is similar to the old one, he will not get the job, because he "would not be a good fit". But he would not want to repeat the experience, now, would he? This applies when you talk directly to the hiring team, may not work so well with the HR department. There are plenty of firms (even startups :-)) where people are treated professionally, it just may take a bit longer to find them.

tptacek 11y ago
I appreciate the good intentions behind this comment but I want to reiterate that giving an "interesting" answer to this question is a terrible idea. The question is a trap, and it's an easy one to avoid. Most candidates have boring answers to this question, not because they're lying, but because reality is pretty boring for people in our industry. There is a remote potential upside to an answer to this question that makes you somehow look super smart --- you rewrote the whole stack in Rust in a weekend, got 100% unit test coverage, built integration tests for both your code and the original PHP and not only got complete coverage but also uncovered a zillion bugs in PHP, and then the rest of the team decided to rewrite in Perl instead. But even then, there's more downside risk than upside risk! In this specific case though, the answer is all downside. You can't make yourself look extra smart by being anti-homophobia. Most of us are that already and we assume it of the people we talk to. The best you can hope for with a "juicy" answer about the culture at your last job is that you won't come across as high-drama. But that's actually asking a lot of your interviewer, who is not a trained psychologist and in fact not especially good at decoding subjective answers. Just be boring for this one question.
- yuhong 11y ago
  As I mentioned in another comment, there is more upside to telling the answer publicly, as other employers can see it and respond with job offers.

by jazzyk 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

I appreciate the good intentions behind this comment but I want to reiterate that giving an "interesting" answer to this question is a terrible idea. The question is a trap, and it's an easy one to avoid. Most candidates have boring answers to this question, not because they're lying, but because reality is pretty boring for people in our industry. There is a remote potential upside to an answer to this question that makes you somehow look super smart --- you rewrote the whole stack in Rust in a weekend, got 100% unit test coverage, built integration tests for both your code and the original PHP and not only got complete coverage but also uncovered a zillion bugs in PHP, and then the rest of the team decided to rewrite in Perl instead. But even then, there's more downside risk than upside risk! In this specific case though, the answer is all downside. You can't make yourself look extra smart by being anti-homophobia. Most of us are that already and we assume it of the people we talk to. The best you can hope for with a "juicy" answer about the culture at your last job is that you won't come across as high-drama. But that's actually asking a lot of your interviewer, who is not a trained psychologist and in fact not especially good at decoding subjective answers. Just be boring for this one question.

yuhong 11y ago
As I mentioned in another comment, there is more upside to telling the answer publicly, as other employers can see it and respond with job offers.